When I was 13 I yearned to be away from my parents.  I thought I was smarter, wiser, and that I knew more than they did about the world.    As a result I wanted to get as far away from their limiting point of view.  I yearned for the freedom to do what I wanted,  where I wanted, and when I wanted.  Thus started the battle that has lasted to this day. The quest for true freedom.

It was 20 years before I started to understand that their wisdom and guidance, had I bothered to pay attention would have been extremely helpful.   Instead of my being smarter, wiser and more knowledgeable, I had been foolish, dumber, and ignorant. The thing I did not understand, the thing that remains even a significant mystery to me today is that once you interact with others, all the stuff that works in theory may have to be thrown away.  Human nature and the way people interact will always determine the final outcome of any endeavor.

The quest for freedom is elusive.  It is the quest for the unobstructed availability to chose your own destiny.    I have the ability to say anything that I want on social media.  Yet if I make a threat or try to be too dramatic bad things happen.  Things that might wind me up in jail or worse.  If I want to take a year long’s safari, my freedom is obstructed by my capability to fund the venture.   If Ann Coulter is asked to give a speech or contribute to a discussion on free speech, she is shouted down.  Her freedom of speech is obstructed.  Limits to freedom in the US, one of the countries most known for its freedoms are everywhere.

Those limits, the ones that I as a child never understood include government controls, financial constraints, social constraints, family constraints and ethical constraints.  The challenge each of us faces how to exercise our freedoms in order to achieve our goals.  If that goal is spreading the word of Christ, there are a multitude of constraints that will seek to prevent others from hearing the truth.  Even in America the right to tell others of his good news is often curtailed.

As an adult, I now understand the limits to freedom that plagued my choices as a younger man.  Yet, even as then,  it is incumbent to push against those limits when it is right to do so.  Whatever your goal, there will be obstacles.  Those limit your ability to achieve the destiny you have planned for yourself.  Sometimes that means challenging those that would shout you down, stand in your way, or condemn you for your beliefs.

I would urge each person to recognized the limits put on them and to push past those limits toward their goals.